Identity Crisis (Boy x Boy)

Part Eighteen

A faded mixture of blue, orange, and purple greeted me at the nearest window as I woke up. It was a wondrous sky that sat above the cityscape of Bluemane. Was I looking at a sunrise or a sunset? I wasn't able to tell in the moment. Activity flooded the streets either way.

With my head still congested from the various events the night before, I was majorly confused by my surroundings. I laid on top of a bed with elegant sheets and pillows serving as its decoration while plush carpeting was spread out below it.

Next to me was an oak mini table with a lamp, an analog clock, a phone, and various Bluemane brochures scattered about. The clock read 7:38 PM, so it definitely was sunset. Damn, I had apparently slept an entire day. The real kick in the balls was the fact that the almost twenty hours of sleep didn't do jack shit for my body... or my mood.

Looking ahead, the objects in front of me consisted of a giant TV that sat atop a dresser accompanied by a desk on one side and a mini-fridge on the other. Windows and paintings occupied the walls in the room.

"Am I in a... hotel?" I asked myself out loud as I sat up and rubbed my throbbing head. How the hell would I have gotten here? The last thing that I could remember was running away from Cody's apartment after he kicked me out. Anything that happened thereafter was a blur. Did I somehow get a room?

I fell back onto the bed, way too distraught to care. My mind and body hadn't even begun to recover from the avalanche of things that happened the previous day, but at the same time, I doubted that it ever would. The ceiling above me caught my focus as I stared at it, paying close attention to the fact that it was smooth and solid-colored. It looked empty; an accurate representation of my future.

There was nowhere for me to go. I couldn't go back to my house and face whatever other torture my parents could offer. I couldn't go back to Cody's. I couldn't go anywhere. A wandering soul had more sense of a destination than I did. There was nowhere for me to even wander because of the ball-and-chains that held me down. I was stuck.

My life lost any semblance of ambition. Everything that I thought my life would turn out to be revolved around one specific person: Cody. He was the only image that came to mind when I thought of the word 'future'. It was such an unhealthy attachment, I knew that, but I was so confident in our relationship that he seemed worth the emotional gamble. Guess I completely lost the lottery.

"He thought I fucking lied to him," I groaned in frustration. I tried closing my eyes, but every time I did, all I could see was his face in the most unwanted way. He looked so offended and hurt that I would suggest Riley and I were the same person. Not once could he look at things from my side and allow me the chance to elaborate on my story. "Asshole."

It wasn't making sense to me. Shouldn't he have been happy to know that down the long, dark tunnel, there was just a small light that suggested his boyfriend was still alive? No, of course he shouldn't have been. My timing made me out to be some jealous boyfriend. I kept playing around with the time and that only prompted me to fail the execution of the truth that he needed to hear.

Now he was gone from my life forever, and just thinking about the term 'gone' threw my body into a deep state of unrest. It didn't help that I was still wearing his clothes that he lent me, or that his scent was on them either. I couldn't escape being reminded of him no matter how hard I tried. My mind continued to force all my unwanted thoughts onto me just to drive more and more pain into my system.

I eventually couldn't take it anymore. As hard as I could, I pulled on my brown hair as hard as I could and screamed. Sanity had left me for dead and its replacement was a giant whirlwind of grief that destroyed every remaining bit of rationality in its wake until I was reduced to a desolate wasteland of misery. All of this over one person. Cody meant that much to me that seeing him push me away like that was enough to cause a meltdown so severe that it would put a toddler in a haunted house to shame.